Is it a Fire Door?

Hi,

I live in a flat on the top floor of a converted Victorian house. I believe the conversion was done in 1983, however, it may be earlier than that. The internal doors are all horrible, and I have been meaning to change them since moving in. Trouble is I do not know if they are fire doors or not. Is there any way to tell?

They appear to be flat cheap doors, none have closers, or strips on the edges. Infact most of them do not close flush and swing open. They are not panelled and lead to all rooms off the hallway/stairs.

All of the doors are like this except one, which leads to one of the bedrooms, which has an old door with a plywood face to make it match the others.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
R

Generally the doors off the hallway to habitable rooms ought to be fire doors so bedrooms, living/dinning rooms and kitchen too. It would be wise to use fire doors if replacing as a matter of common sense if nothing else anyway. That said if the existing doors are quite thin (ie around 35mm) as fire doors are usually 44mm thick you may have problems fitting the thicker doors. In an ideal world you'd fit FD30S doors which means a 30 minute fore door with an intumescent (fire resistant) seal to the sides and top. No need for closers but it would be prudent to ensure they all shut properly. Theoretically the ironmongery and hinges should all be compliant too although the doors are the main thing to be concerned with.

If your doors are non standard sizes you will have great difficulty in finding attractive fire resistant doors other than flush plywood ones suitable only for painting.

Everything above is irrelevant though if you don't intend shutting them at night or you don't have a smoke alarms.

Thanks very much for your post, most helpful. I shall measure the doors and try look at online door providers to see if they're "standard" in width and size.

But one thing remains, and that is how I can find out if my current doors are fire doors?

oh, Fire alarms are something I already have, and doors aren't always closed at night.

Cheers
R

Frankly I do not know as I was 11 in 1983 so am not too familiar with the regs from that era! I suspect probably not especially as there are no closers, how thick are they BTW, are they heavy doors or lightweight? If lightweight they will certainly not be fire doors. Either post a question in Planning and Building Regs section or contact your local Building Control Office, there'll probably be an old timer who can confirm what the regs were back then. In any case as mentioned it would be wise to fit fire doors if possible now irrelevant as to the classification of the existing doors.